peacehttp://livingchurch.org/taxonomy/term/264/all
en‘We Must Cry to God’http://livingchurch.org/we-must-cry-to-God
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height: 1.538em;">Adapted from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s </span><a href="http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/5382/statement-from-archbishop-justin-on-gaza" style="line-height: 1.538em;">website</a></p>
<p>Archbishop Justin Welby issued this statement July 30 about violence in Gaza and Israel:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">You can’t look at the pictures coming from Gaza and Israel without your heart breaking. We must cry to God and beat down the doors of heaven and pray for peace and justice and security. Only a costly and open-hearted seeking of peace between Israeli and Palestinian can protect innocent people, their children and grandchildren, from ever worse violence.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">My utmost admiration is for all those involved in the humanitarian efforts on the ground, not least the medical team and staff at Al Ahli Arab Hospital. Providing relief and shelter for those displaced is a tangible expression of our care and concern, and I encourage Church of England parishes and dioceses, as well as the wider Communion, to pray for them and support the Diocese of Jerusalem’s emergency appeal.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">While humanitarian relief for those civilians most affected is a priority, especially women and children, we must also recognise that this conflict underlines the importance of renewing a commitment to political dialogue in the wider search for peace and security for both Israeli and Palestinian. The destructive cycle of violence has caused untold suffering and threatens the security of all.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">For all sides to persist with their current strategy, be it threatening security by the indiscriminate firing of rockets at civilian areas or aerial bombing which increasingly fails to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, is self-defeating. The bombing of civilian areas, and their use to shelter rocket launches, are both breaches of age-old customs for the conduct of war. Further political impasse, acts of terror, economic blockades or sanctions and clashes over land and settlements, all increase the alienation of those affected. Populations condemned to hopelessness or living under fear will be violent. Such actions create more conflict, more deaths and will in the end lead to an even greater disaster than the one being faced today. The road to reconciliation is hard, but ultimately the only route to security. It is the responsibility of all leaders to protect the innocent, not only in the conduct of war but in setting the circumstances for a just and sustainable peace.</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">While it is acceptable to question and even disagree with particular policies of the Israeli government, the spike in violence and abuse against Jewish communities here in the UK is simply unacceptable. We must not allow such hostility to disrupt the good relations we cherish among people of all faiths. Rather we must look at ways at working together to show our concern and support for those of goodwill on all sides working for peace.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/peace" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">peace</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/war" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">war</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/prayer" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">prayer</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/archbishop-canterbury-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Archbishop of Canterbury</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/lead-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Lead Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/news" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News</a></div></div></div>Wed, 30 Jul 2014 16:48:32 +0000Web Editor1544 at http://livingchurch.orgEastwood and Moral Theologyhttp://livingchurch.org/eastwood-and-moral-theology
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Eastwood and Moral Theology<br />The Ethical Vision of Clint Eastwood<br />By <strong>Sara Anson Vaux</strong>. <a href="http://www.eerdmans.com/Products/6295/the-ethical-vision-of-clint-eastwood.aspx">Eerdmans</a>. Pp. 277. $24</p>
<p>Review by Ken Ross</p>
<p>If the flinty gaze and violent oeuvre of Clint Eastwood have long been your guilty pleasure, rejoice. Sara Anson Vaux has redeemed your little secret. Dirty Harry, it turns out, had an ethical vision. That .44 Magnum was just a trope, a means by which Eastwood could remind us of the wages of sin and the bloody consequences of <em>lex talionis</em>.</p>
<p>As Vaux says in her preface: “Seen along a forty-year continuum, Eastwood’s movies reveal stages in an unfolding moral ontology — a sense of being in the world.” Eastwood, it seems, is interested in the narrative exploration of “justice, confession, war and peace.” So it is time for all of his closeted fans — you know who you are — to come out and enter into conversation with this irascible, iconic and gifted filmmaker.</p>
<p>Of course Eastwood’s oeuvre is more than Dirty Harry or the avenging angel characters of his many westerns. His work consists of an astonishing number and variety of films: <em>J. Edgar</em>, <em>Invictus</em>, <em>Gran Torino</em>, <em>Letters from Iwo Jima</em>, <em>Million Dollar Baby</em>, <em>Mystic River</em>, <em>The Bridges of Madison County</em>, and a host of other projects many of us have never seen. Whatever your view of Eastwood, he is more, much more, than you might suppose. He has directed 31 films to date. His filmography, as listed on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000142/">IMDb</a>, includes 605 entries, an amazing body of work. Eastwood has been as prolific as he has been influential. And as Vaux makes clear, his artistic and moral vision has constantly evolved, while the themes that interest him have remained remarkably consistent.</p>
<p>This book examines the range of Eastwood’s films in four principal sections: “The Angel of Death,” “The Mysteries of Life,” “Eternal War,” and “Hereafter.” Vaux reads into this body of work a theological undercurrent “steeped in religious symbols, religious ritual, and the promise of reconciliation.” Eastwood is portrayed as someone who presents a counter-narrative, standing against our prevailing cultural mythologies. In his westerns, for example, Vaux examines how Eastwood’s angel of death characters “breached the boundaries of the genre” by undermining the predominant myth of the American superhero. Eastwood’s work, in its various genres, is interested in narratives that are either explicitly or implicitly subversive of the simple and formulaic stories typical of Hollywood.</p>
<p>Vaux argues that Eastwood’s films are to “be read rather than watched.” And Vaux is a capable guide, ably pointing out ways in which we can read his work. Within the four principal sections, she annotates key films and draws out inner meanings, points out symbolism, makes theological connections, and explains the filmmaker’s craft. These observations make explicit why Eastwood’s work is so durable. For many of us, the elements of his work have been enjoyed but not necessarily understood. The strength of the appeal of Eastwood’s work may have been based on intuition more than a conscious appreciation of his subtext. Vaux deserves great credit for explicating the symbolism and moral discourse that undergirds Eastwood’s work.</p>
<p>Vaux’s insights will motivate many readers to revisit Eastwood’s films. Her passion for Eastwood is contagious. So, if you thought that you would never see Clint Eastwood’s name and the phrase <em>moral ontology</em> in the same sentence, you will no longer be surprised after reading this book. Eastwood’s portrayal of the American hero, whose utterance of “Make my day” has become synonymous with the hyper-virile, revenge-minded protagonist, has in the end become the agent of its own deconstruction. The violence of an Eastwood film is neither gratuitous nor simple, and neither is Eastwood. He is a musically inclined, jazz-loving, history-reading, philosophically nuanced actor-director whose work should be of interest to us all, from cinephiles to theologians.</p>
<p><em>Ken Ross works in the mineral exploration industry in the United States and West Africa and is a member of the Living Church Foundation.</em></p>
<p>Discuss this post on TLC’s pages at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/livingchurchmag">Facebook</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/CovenantTLC">Twitter</a>. Subscribe to TLC’s <a href="http://www.livingchurch.org/rss.xml">RSS feed</a>.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/clint-eastwood" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Clint Eastwood</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/director" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">director</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/violence" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">violence</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/justice" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">justice</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/confession" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">confession</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/war" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">war</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/peace" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">peace</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/lead-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Lead Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/essays-reviews" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Essays &amp; Reviews</a></div></div></div>Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:10:09 +0000Douglas LeBlanc299 at http://livingchurch.orgAlliance Stresses Food Securityhttp://livingchurch.org/alliance-stresses-food-security
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>By John Martin</p>
<p>Egypt ought to be breadbasket of the Middle East. Instead a nation endowed with the highly fertile Nile Delta and a heritage in wheat growing that predates the story of Joseph cannot grow enough for its domestic needs. Mexico gave the world maize, yet today it has to rely on imports.</p>
<p>These are just two of many examples of a problem evident the world over and illustrates why food security has emerged as the top priority issue for the Anglican Alliance. The purpose of this initiative launched just a year ago by Archbishop Rowan Williams is to connect and strengthen Anglican development, relief and advocacy.</p>
<p>“The truth is that a billion people are going hungry today when there is no need for it,” says Sally Keeble, director of the alliance and a former U.K. government minister.</p>
<p>Keeble says the problem is not lack of capacity to produce enough food. “It reflects a whole complex of issues: lack of proper distribution systems, international trade in commodities which distorts food prices, emphasis on cash crops rather than food for locals and lack of support for small farmers who grow 80 percent of our food.” The effects of climate change and war take their toll too.</p>
<p>Born in 1951 as the daughter of a former U.K. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Keeble studied theology at Oxford and sociology at the University of South Africa, after which she worked as a journalist, first in South Africa and then in Birmingham in the U.K. Midlands.</p>
<p>Later she worked for the Labour Party and the Inner London Education Authority, and was head of communications for the GMB trade union (600,000-plus members), then entered the first rung of British politics as a full-time council leader in inner London.</p>
<p>In 1997 she was elected to the Westminster Parliament when Tony Blair’s Labour government came to power, as one of the so-called Blair Babes (she laughs). She eventually became part of his government, serving first as a minister in the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions and later in the Department for International Development.</p>
<p>In Parliament her voting record reveals concerns about deforestation and climate change, religious liberty and human rights in Tibet and support for debt relief for developing countries and for people with a learning disability. Not one to shirk controversy, she publicly withdrew her support for Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown. She said it was the role of a Prime Minister “to offer a vision to voters, but sadly, this is no longer the case.”</p>
<p>This formidable CV means she is very much at home in political corridors, both in London and further afield. She believes U.K.-based community work, rather than her previous work in international development, better prepared her for the alliance.</p>
<p>The alliance addresses a vacuum evident in the Anglican Communion for many years. After the famous 1963 Toronto Congress, a program arose which became known as MRI (Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ). The aim was not all that different from what the alliance is attempting, but MRI eventually imploded, having become primarily a clearinghouse for projects seeking funding. In the 1980s there were attempts to set up an Anglican International Development Agency, but this failed, not least because some existing players in the field saw it as a threat.</p>
<p>During four regional consultations, the alliance identified nine priorities:</p>
<ul><li>Climate change</li>
<li>Community empowerment</li>
<li>Economic empowerment</li>
<li>Food security</li>
<li>Governance</li>
<li>Migrants and refugees</li>
<li>Peace and reconciliation</li>
<li>Women’s empowerment</li>
<li>Youth empowerment</li>
</ul><p>Keeble says food security is the major theme for the alliance’s global advocacy. The alliance is not the standard relief and development agency. “It doesn’t do top-down international development structures or programs,” Keeble says. “It works from the grassroots up, empowering churches and building on the work they are doing.”</p>
<p>She adds: “It means you don’t have that awful donor-donee relationship. The issue of resources or funding streams comes much further down the line. The major emphasis is on the prophetic voice of the church and advocacy work that’s got access to people in authority but is rooted in the life of the local church.”</p>
<p>What have been the highlights and lowlights of the alliance’s first year of operations? The big task was setting up and finding out what needed to be done. “We started looking at what I call ‘demonstration projects.’ It’s not the same as pilot projects. It was simply looking at examples of what people in the churches were doing.”</p>
<p>One example was how the Australian Board of Missions partnered with the Church of Pakistan to do flood relief work. “Then I spent time in Burundi seeing how we could do advocacy there. The Department for International Development had decided to cut off British government funding to Burundi. We provided a report that brought the Archbishop of Burundi to London to make the case before a Parliamentary Select Committee.</p>
<p>“Speaking there as an Anglican Archbishop in his own right had more clout than being an adjunct to an aid agency,” she says. Even so, the move was not a complete success. The committee supported Burundi’s case, but the government did not relent. “We always knew it would be hard to get the government to change its mind.”</p>
<p>The initiative heralded changes nonetheless. Burundi has reopened its Consulate in London, so lobbying continues. It is seeking membership in The Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 54 countries that support each other and work together towards shared goals in democracy and development, and the alliance is assisting with the search for voluntary sector development funds.</p>
<p>Building up the capacity of the churches is important. The alliance successfully applied to the Commonwealth Professional Development Scheme. The upshot was that church-education administrators, collectively overseeing 200 church schools in Ghana, the Solomon Islands, Nigeria and the Caribbean, came to London for a tailored nine-week programme to learn new skills in finance, administration and governance from U.K. people and each other. Negotiations are underway to see if the programme, completed in mid-March 2012, can be repeated.</p>
<p>The alliance has just signed a contract with Britain’s Open University (OU) to provide access-level modules on aspects of community development: consultation, inclusion, work programming, financial management, governance and protection of vulnerable people. It will be available online and offline, piloted in Africa and then rolled out globally. It is an important first step in the OU’s plans to go global. The OU has worked before with companies, but not with church or voluntary agencies.</p>
<p>Keeble is keen to emphasise that while her U.K. connections have enabled the alliance to build bridgeheads into the Commonwealth and the U.K. government, it is not a British organisation. It has enlisted the support of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who has supported the food security issue with a letter to the Obama administration. It is building links with the Primate of Canada’s Fund for World Relief.</p>
<p>It joined with the church in Uraguay to apply to the Inter-American Development Bank for funding services to mothers and early-years children. It is setting up offices in different parts of the world so that development funding can be better accessed.</p>
<p>The core daily work for the alliance is sharing stories of best practice. Churches are engaged in a massive level of unheralded caring work. Wars and natural disasters leave a trail of casualties for local churches to help. In the arid northeast of Kenya the church is bringing help where a combination of civil war in Somalia and the worst drought in 60 years is taking its toll.</p>
<p>In Peshawar, Pakistan, what began as a church response to flooding has widened into a minority church moving beyond its own community in offering literacy training for women and vocational skills training for young men.</p>
<p>In Honiara, Solomon Islands, a women’s refuge run by an Anglican order of nuns is doing highly impressive work, linking up social workers, lawyers and the courts to assist vulnerable women in a context where there is much general hostility towards the church.</p>
<p>In several South American countries people from a small denomination earn respect by advocating for exploited indigenous mine workers or helping local people secure their land against companies trying to drive them off in favour of huge cattle ranches.</p>
<p>All over the world women’s groups like the Mothers’ Union deliver care and press for change. Everywhere there are Anglican priests capable of bringing counselling skills to people traumatised by natural disasters, war or drought. In its own way the alliance is finding ways of joining the dots.</p>
<p>What is the role of faith in the work Keeble observes? “It’s massive,” she says without hesitation. “Yes, faith provides the vision and commitment for people to do this work, often in very difficult surroundings. It’s rooted in Anglicanism’s Five Marks of Mission, particularly responding to human need, seeking to confront and transform unjust structures, and working to protect the life of the earth.”</p>
<p><em>John Martin is TLC’s London correspondent.</em></p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/climate-change" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">climate change</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/food-security" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">food security</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/governance" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">governance</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/migrants" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">migrants</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/refugees" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">refugees</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/peace" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">peace</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/reconciliation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">reconciliation</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/women%E2%80%99s-empowerment" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">women’s empowerment</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/lead-story" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Lead Story</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/news" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News</a></div></div></div>Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:18:56 +0000Douglas LeBlanc219 at http://livingchurch.org